Public Release: 24-Jun-2010
VIVO utilizing Scopus custom data

Amsterdam, 24 June 2010 - Elsevier, a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today that VIVO has begun a pilot project to evaluate the process by which Scopus Custom Data can be used to populate institutional VIVO instances. The pilot project, carried out by the VIVO development team at the University of Florida, utilizes a Scopus Custom Data dataset and will serve as a proof of concept with respect to integrating Scopus Custom Data into individual VIVO instances for discovery across the VIVO network.

VIVO is a NIH-funded national initiative aimed at connecting scientists and fostering collaboration across academic institutions. The VIVO project enables national networking of scientists through institutional-based installations of its open source semantic web application. VIVO partner institutions currently include Cornell University, where VIVO was first developed; the University of Florida, which is leading the program expansion; Weill Cornell Medical College; Indiana University; Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis; The Scripps Research Institute and Ponce School of Medicine, Puerto Rico.

Leveraging the breadth and depth of the raw publication content provided by Scopus Custom Data, an institution will be able to generate more complete bibliographic researcher profiles for display in VIVO. These profiles are the backbone of the VIVO project as they allow scientists to easily and quickly identify peers at institutions across the country with whom they can collaborate based on similar or complimentary research work. It is planned that institutions that choose to utilize Scopus Custom Data datasets to populate their VIVO installations will have the opportunity to purchase a discrete set of bibliographic elements related to the publications of the institution's authors. The installation at the University of Florida will serve as a proof of concept with respect to integrating Scopus Custom Data into an individual VIVO instance.

"As we know, gathering bibliographic data from faculty can be challenging, so incorporating Scopus Custom Data will cut back the time it takes to search and gather institutional publications for VIVO," said Dr. Michael Conlon, Ph.D., principal investigator of the VIVO project and director of data infrastructure at the University of Florida. "By working with Elsevier in this proof of concept, we can validate the implementation of Scopus Custom Data within our system. We believe using Scopus Custom Data will add great value to VIVO installations as it is one of the premier literature and citation sources in the world today."

"We strongly support VIVO's mission to connect scientists and support collaboration across disciplines," said Niels Weertman, vice-president of product management for Scopus. "The breadth of our Scopus Custom Data will allow VIVO to comprehensively capture faculty research activity from a single source. We are excited to be a part of this significant initiative and to work with the University of Florida and other VIVO institutions as they continue to play a critical role in building and developing the VIVO network."

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About VIVO

VIVO is an open source semantic web application that enables the discovery of research and scholarship across disciplinary and administrative boundaries in an institution through interlinked profiles of people and other research-related information. VIVO, originally developed at Cornell University, is being expanded through a $12.2m stimulus grant from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the University of Florida and six partner institutions (Cornell University; Indiana University; Ponce School of Medicine, Puerto Rico; The Scripps Research Institute; Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis; and Weill Cornell Medical College). VIVO uses data ingested from institutional sources of record and external sources, supplemented with manual entry to populate detailed profiles of scholars and researchers with information related to publications, grants, educational background, research interests, outreach activities, teaching, awards, professional affiliations, and more. Data in VIVO conform to a public ontology of types and relationships that can be extended for local needs via the ontology editor included with the VIVO application. VIVO's ontology supports faceted searching for quick retrieval of people, organizations, events, and research-related information. Institutional VIVOs and other compatible profiling applications are producing data to form a rich network of information which can be searched to foster collaboration across institutions and enable open sharing of research discovery. For more information about VIVO, please visit: http://vivoweb.org.

About Scopus.com and Scopus Custom Data

Covering the world's research literature, Scopus.com is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources with smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research. Its unique database contains abstracts and references from 18,000 peer-reviewed journals from more than 5,000 publishers worldwide, ensuring broad interdisciplinary coverage. In addition, Scopus not only offers users citation information about the articles covered, but also integrates web and patent searches directly from its clean and simple interface. Direct links to full-text articles, library resources and other applications like reference management software, make Scopus quicker, easier and more comprehensive to use than any other literature research tool. For more information about Scopus please visit http://www.info.scopus.com . Scopus Custom Data provides research agencies, institutions and government bodies with customized datasets in XML format for large-scale research performance analysis. Scopus Custom Data extracts Scopus core records in accordance to each customer's individual specifications, such as date range, subject categories and geographic location. The XML data can then be loaded by customers into their proprietary in-house systems, making it possible for them to run their specific search queries and execute their own analytical techniques; providing the analyst with the freedom to formulate their own reports. It empowers them to make well-informed, unbiased resource allocation and policy making decisions.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including the Lancet (www.thelancet.com) and Cell (www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (www.scopus.com), Reaxys (www.reaxys.com), MD Consult (www.mdconsult.com) and Nursing Consult (www.nursingconsult.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (www.scival.com) and MEDai's Pinpoint Review (www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier (www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC (www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading publisher and information provider. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

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